It’s Dussehra!

It’s the festival of Dussehra and I’ve just been to watch a huge effigy of Ravana going up in flames in Golf Links where I live in central Delhi – here are some pictures.

This is the start of a festive season that leads on to Divali, the festival of lights, which this year is on November 5.

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Tonight, there have been fireworks displays, ending with a ceremonial burning of effigies celebrating Ravana’s defeat by King Rama. Ravana was a rival king, who had abducted Rama’s wife Sita to what is now Sri Lanka – signifying victory over hubris and ego, as I explained in a post three years ago for some foreign visitors to Delhi when this blog appeared on the Fortune magazine website.

In the days before Dussehra, scenes from the ancient Ramayana epic have been enacted across India, especially in the north where every city has a large park area known as a Ramlila Ground.